[37][38]Soon after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley in 1847, Brigham Young began organizing a Board of Regents to establish a university.

Following years of intermittent classes in the Salt Lake City Council House, the university began to be re-established in 1867 under the direction of David O. Calder, who was followed by John R. Park in 1869.

[1][41]The university grew rapidly in the early 20th century but was involved in an academic freedom controversy in 1915 when Joseph T. Kingsbury recommended that five faculty members be dismissed after a graduation speaker made a speech critical of Utah governor William Spry.

Venues for performing arts include Kingsbury Hall, used for touring companies and concerts, Pioneer Memorial Theatre, used by the professional Pioneer Theatre Company, David P. Gardner Hall, used by the School of Music and for musical performances, and the Marriott Center for Dance.

The rule prohibits students and faculty from "smoking or using chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and all other recreational nicotine-delivery products on any property owned, leased or controlled by the University of Utah.

The complex consists of nine housing areas: Chapel Glen, Gateway Heights, Sage Point, Officer's Circle, Benchmark Plaza, Shoreline Ridge, the Donna Garff Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community (MHC for short), the Lassonde Studios, and Kahlert Village.

Riders can travel downtown, to FrontRunner (commuter rail), to West Valley, to the Salt Lake City International Airport, or to Draper by transferring to the TRAX Green or Blue lines.

[70][71][72] Sustainability efforts include a permanent sustainability office, a campus cogeneration plant, building upgrades and energy efficient building standards, behavior modification programs, purchasing local produce for campus dining, a farmers market, and student groups, as well as a branch of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective.

Currently there are programs in place for paper, cardboard, aluminum, batteries, glass, printer cartridges, wooden pallets and plastics #1 and #2.

The combined arrays annually produce 1,096,340 kilowatt hours, and are supported by a student fee sustainability program established in 2008.

[83] The chief executive officer of the University of Utah is the president, who reports to the Board of Higher Education and, with the approval of the trustees, submits budgets, tuition adjustments, and academic program plans, appoints faculty, and develops policy initiatives.

[84][85] Subject to the Board of Trustees, the university faculty have authority to legislate on matters of educational policy via the Academic Senate.

[106] The University of Utah was one of the original four nodes of ARPANET, the world's first packet-switched network and embryo of the current worldwide Internet.

[108] Notable innovations of computer science faculty and alumni include the first method for representing surface textures in graphical images, the Gouraud shading model, magnetic ink printing technology, the Johnson counter logic circuit, the oldest algebraic mathematics package still in use (REDUCE), the Phong reflection model, the Phong shading method, and the rendering equation.

[109] Through the movement of Utah graduates and faculty, research at the University spread outward to laboratories like Xerox Parc, JPL, and the New York Institute of Technology.

[16] The medical school has made several notable contributions to medicine, such as establishing the first Cerebrovascular Disease Unit west of the Mississippi River in 1970 and administering the world's first permanent artificial heart, the Jarvik-7, to Barney Clark in 1982.

[118] The department of Pharmacology and Toxicology within the School of Pharmacy is world-renowned for research in epilepsy treatment with their Anticonvulsant Drug Development (ADD) program.

[127] Professor Keith David Watenpaugh charges the program with "promoting the falsification of history through its grants and political advocacy... the University of Utah has provided an institutional home to genocide denial.

[133] There is a fierce BYU–Utah rivalry, and the Utah–BYU football game, traditionally the season finale, has been called the "Holy War" by national broadcasting commentators.

[145] Utah basketball rose again to national prominence when head coach Rick Majerus took his team, including guard Andre Miller, combo forward Hanno Möttölä, and post player Michael Doleac, to the NCAA Final Four in 1998.

[148] 2008–2009 was another undefeated year for the football team, coached by Kyle Whittingham, as they finished the season 13–0 and defeated Alabama 31–17 in the 2009 Sugar Bowl.

At the end of the season, the Utes were the only unbeaten team in the country, with the nation's longest active streak of bowl victories (8).

[157] The current student activity center, the A. Ray Olpin University Union, is a common gathering place for university-wide events such as Crimson Nights, roughly monthly student activity nights; PlazaFest, a fair for campus groups at the start of the school year; and the Grand Kerfuffle, a concert at the end of the school year.

[180] Notable alumni include politicians Rocky Anderson, Bob Bennett, Marsha K. Caddle, Merrill Cook, E. Jake Garn, Jon Huntsman, Jr., Karen Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Joshua Rush, and Karl Rove;[181] recent LDS Church presidents Gordon B. Hinckley,[182] Thomas S. Monson,[183] and Russell M. Nelson;[184] historian and Pulitzer Prize for History laureate Laurel Thatcher Ulrich;[185] journalist and 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner for local reporting Rachel Piper[186] authors Orson Scott Card,[187] Stephen Covey, Shannon Hale, Terry Tempest Williams, and Wallace Stegner; R Adams Cowley, William DeVries, and Robert Jarvik in medicine; historian Richard Foltz; educators Gordon Gee,[188] Jonathan Westover,[189] and Ann Weaver Hart;[190] reporter Martha Raddatz;[191] writer and canoeist Neal Moore,[192] and speed reading innovator Evelyn Nielsen Wood.

[193] Notable science and engineering alumni include Jim Blinn; Mark W. Fuller, CEO of WET Design; Andrea Russell, Vice President of the International Society of Electrochemistry; Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO, and Healtheon; Gretchen W. McClain, former NASA Deputy Associate Administrator of Human Space Exploration and Chief Director of the International Space Station; Henri Gouraud; John C. Cook who played a crucial role in establishing the field of ground-penetrating radar;[194] Ralph Hartley;[195] rocket scientist Joseph Majdalani;[196] Alan Kay; Simon Ramo; and John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe Systems.

Notable entrepreneur and business leader alumni include Alan Ashton, co-founder of WordPerfect and Thanksgiving Point; Freestyle Skiër Tom Wallisch; Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese; Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar; J. Willard Marriott, founder of Marriott International; Robert A.

"Bob" McDonald, CEO of Procter & Gamble;[197] David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue; Telle Whitney, CEO and President of the Anita Borg Institute;[198] and Nintendo of America's current president, Doug Bowser[199] In athletics, notable alumni include baseball player Chris Shelton; basketball players Andrew Bogut, Kyle Kuzma, Andre Miller, and Keith Van Horn; football players Paul Kruger, Star Lotulelei, Jamal Anderson, Kevin Dyson, Eric Weddle, Alex Smith, and Steve Smith Sr.; hall of fame karate grandmaster Dan Hausel; and football coach LaVell Edwards.

Notable alumni also includes serial killer Ted Bundy, who briefly attended the College of Law before dropping out.

Lee Isaac Chung, director of the Academy Award-winning film Minari, completed his graduate studies at the university's film-making program.

[184] Biologist Ralph Vary Chamberlin, founding dean of the Medical School, professor, and later historian of the University, was also an alumnus.